Between the Bars
by koneko zero
Summary: Hyuga Makoto is the most pessimistic optimist in all of NERV, according to Aoba. Unfortunately he also has all the willpower of a heroin addict when it comes to the central cause.


**Title:** Between the Bars

**Series:** Neon Genesis Evangelion (anime series)

**Spoilers:** For episode 15 onwards / manga vol. 5 – I can't recall the exact chapter, sorry

**Warnings:** Language, some innuendo, SPOLIERS

**Summary:** Hyuga Makoto is the most pessimistic optimist in all of NERV, according to Aoba. Unfortunately he also has all the willpower of a heroin addict when it comes to the central cause.

ooo

**BETWEEN THE BARS**

ooo

**Hyuga Makoto** is in fact the first to admit that this infatuation with Katsuragi-san is ridiculous – and given several of the ways in which he's taken to showing his affection and devotion, potentially suicidal. Unfortunately, he's also the first to admit that he simply can't help himself. Considering his age and (supposed) life experience, he should be backing away and engaging his brain; her relationship with that bastard casanova Kaji-san should have been the final goddamn straw.

Nerv's office gossip is worse than most thanks to the insane, nothing-is-sacred surveillance systems and mouthy intelligence operatives – there are many reasons for the hostility towards that department, god damn it. It isn't as though Kaji-san and the object of Makoto's doomed affections have tried to be subtle either, for all the woman's bluster. In all honesty, the technician had been shocked by how she is; Shinji-kun's ungrateful bitching, Asuka-chan's sniping and Akagi-sensei's wild stories are nothing compared to the mutterings and occasional glimpses of how she is with that son-of-a-bitch inspector. At one hopeless point, Makoto had been beyond desperate to give up on the woman. He told himself every ugly lie he could come up with and managed to almost believe them for one miserable-as-all-hell fortnight.

At which point Aoba – that long-haired git – couldn't help himself any longer, and made an ill-advised comment about how fucking funny for an innocent guy like him to have ever given the time of day to "a slut like Katsuragi."

The usually mild-mannered geek knocked out three of Aoba's molars and broke his own finger against the nihilist twassock's jaw.

Hyuga gave up on giving up damn quickly after that. Aoba gave up on trying to make him give up too, which was probably a far bigger shock to poor Ibuki.

Akagi-sensei seems vaguely amused when Makoto appears at the second command centre over an hour early for his shift the next day to present Katsuragi-san with a double-shot skinny latte from the kitsch little café she loves – which is, incidentally, thirty-five minutes from his home on a good day, in the opposite direction to his designated entrance to the geo-front. Katsuragi-san smiles and thanks him as though he'd never stopped his sweet little gestures towards her.

Makoto still isn't sure what that means, or how he feels about it. Overall it's becoming a severe fucking pain, because Ibuki tends to interrogate him regarding his feelings and any (as yet nonexistent) epiphanies at least three times a week. Makoto just wishes he'd known how much of a maniac the petite woman is with regards to anything even vaguely romantic before he'd opened his big goddamn trap, because he'd have saved himself one hell of a lot of trauma. However he ends up feeling about Katsuragi-san's reaction though, he's decided to list it as a distinctly Good Thing. It's less awkward than if she had questioned him, certainly, and her lack of resentment regarding "their break" (as Aoba has taken to calling it between snickers) is a relief, but his poor little stomach twists itself up with his circulatory system when he thinks that perhaps it just doesn't mean enough for her to care either way. The full mental run through of alternatives – and there are many variations that his paranoid mind can conjure – all end in unmitigated disaster. Usually via Makoto's inability to keep quiet and refrain from either humiliating himself or hurting Katsuragi-san with his nervous babbling.

ooo

**The next** Friday, he brings a delicate cupcake with her coffee and revels in the delighted look on her pretty face and the jubilant, "Thanks so much, Hyuga!" that he receives in exchange. Even catching Kaji-san's knowing and yet somehow sympathetic smirk from across the room in his peripherals fails to detract from the warm glow in his stomach as he watches her long, violet hair shift from the tremors of her happy giggles. When she offers to share it he stutters and stumbles and comes embarrassingly close to passing out, but it doesn't seem to matter – she's already slicing it down the middle with an old-school Swiss Army knife extracted from Lord-only-knows where. Makoto exerts every ounce of his fractured control to ignore Aoba's snickering behind him as he lifts the raspberries carefully from his share of the icing and drops them on her side of the plate as casually as he can.

"You don't like them?" She's looking at him curiously, her eyes large over the rim of the garish print of her take-away cup.

He flushes. "Not especially. I don't mind them sometimes…" A lie, albeit a very negligible one. He adores them, but like everything else fresh and the least bit delicious they're stupidly expensive; he might be able to treat himself to a small punnet once ever two or three months, if he does well keeping his general grocery bills down. Next week, for example, the cupcake will be of the plain vanilla (if prettily decorated) variety. But the sacrifice is worth it for the sound of his Madonna's hum of pleasure as the first berry bursts between her pretty white teeth.

Makoto tries not to think of how desperately he wishes it could be only the two of them in the room – that he could be the only one seeing her smile and hearing her appreciative (oh, dear _Christ_ in _Heaven_) moans as she devours her half of the small treat. He especially tries not to see Kaji-san's eyes run over her before turning their attention to the dark-haired technician himself, with that terrible damned sympathy pressing judgement upon him.

He would glare back, if he could. He wants to, badly; he wants to glower across at the smug bastard, challenge him to be better to her and for her than Makoto would be, demonstrate just how much of a fight he'll have on his hands to keep her (not "if he wants to keep her," because Hyuga already knows the answer to that, and it burns). But what would the point be other than make himself the misogynist imbecile in this scene? Katsuragi-san has made her choice. It isn't as though he's been subtle or shy regarding his attentions. He hasn't taken the final step of confessing (humiliating) himself to her, but he dotes upon and spoils only the one woman from all the varieties Tokyo-3 has to offer. If she hasn't asked him out for coffee or offered any adorable gestures in return by now it's simply because she doesn't want him.

He tells himself that knowing it as a foregone conclusion has softened the blow.

ooo

**Aoba, with** his typical lack of delicacy, asks him the awkward question after a few more weeks during yet another Friday dinner and beer session. "Why the fuck do you bother when she's never gonna give you anything back, you bloody idiot?"

Maya's ears prick up, her noodles hovering precariously over the arm of Makoto's sofa, and he sighs without any intention of giving a truly verbal reply. Until the small woman, ears still twitching, turns in her seat (he flinches, watching the noodles drip) and, for the first time that the cosmos can remember, agrees with the brunette man. "He has a point, Makoto-kun. I know she appreciates it all, and you're adorable with her, but there are a lot of _single_ girls who would love to be treated like that."

"You might actually get laid for your pains, too."

"Shut up, Aoba."

"Seriously, my man here's gonna die a virgin at this rate!"

"Makoto's had girlfriends before, you know."

"Yep, and he's never yet gone all the way. Always turned them down before bedtime. Fact," he retorts with a smirk. "Something about love, and all that."

Maya's eyes are wide as she turns back to him, the question obvious. He means to only shrug nonchalantly, however a sheepish nod works its way into the gesture and he flushes. "I was going to, but then something didn't feel… _Enough_ and… I just," he mumbles, "want the right girl. And there's a lot you can do aside from that."

Aoba groans and reaches for his beer, "No matter how right the girl is, she's still not gonna let you screw her. Find another."

"Aoba –"

"I will fucking _pay_ for one as your birthday present," he grunts around another mouthful of noodles shovelled hurriedly up from his plate.

"Aoba!" Maya shrieks, affronted.

"He's in his twenties!"

"That doesn't matter! Making love –"

"_Do not use that term where I may hear it!_ Get your head outta those shoujo manga!"

"Jaded old hentai!"

"For shit's sake! Shut up, both of you," he grunts, irritable and embarrassed, and they quieten, fidgeting awkwardly. It's his flat, after all. "You mean well, yes, thank you very much. But I'm in love with Katsuragi-san." He looks at Aoba. "I don't care if I haven't quite gone all the way – I've done plenty of the rest and I'll finish the checklist in my own damn time and with a girl I love. If that means I never get any, it's _my_ damn problem." Aoba gives an apologetic smile and a shrug, and Makoto swings his eyes to Maya. "I don't much care how many other girls there are – one of them has my eye and that's that. Would you rather I lead some other girl on without ever really feeling anything for her? End up sighing someone else's name half way through a kiss?" She shakes her head. "Then just leave me to my misery."

And, dear _Lord_, is he ever miserable. He admires and appreciates and loves and lusts and needs and wants, and it all swings around a woman who's with another man. An older man than Makoto, with more experience, more money, and stronger arms. A man she has years of history with, and whose university sweatshirt she still has at the back of her closet for rainy days even though she would claim she doesn't care about him, that he irritates her.

But then the man turns out to be even more of a bastard than Hyuga ever imagined. He gets himself blown away.

ooo

**The spy** thing doesn't bother the technician, not the way it should, because his own suspicions regarding agendas and secrets have been burning away for months now. He knew, those few times that Katsuragi-san discreetly requested data or reports she technically shouldn't have seen, that something was up – besides which, he _gave_ her that info knowing she shouldn't really see it (and furthermore that her eyes wouldn't be the only ones skimming it later), which makes him privy to the whole fucking subterfuge. No, he can deal with Kaji being a spy. It even helps a little, to know that maybe some of their relationship was a cover. Maybe, at least, some of the more lewd rumours… He doesn't dare speculate with regards to the bastard having her heart.

No. Walking past a vaguely seedy bar three days after the news becomes gossip is when he truly loathes that _utter_ son of a whore.

Katsu– That isn't quite right. When she has tears on her face, red visible under the waterproof eye-makeup, her head buried in her arms and nursing what is obviously not one of her first few drinks, she's very much Misato-san. Which is what he calls her as he walks through the open front and up to her end of the bar, closest to the one window that won't open.

She doesn't look up at him – just slumps further against the dark wood of the bar, which causes the short black dress to ride up a little more and provide the other patrons (not to mention Makoto himself, and _fuck_ but he has always adored that dress) a glimpse of pale skin and dark cotton pressed to the barstool. The technician fires a glare towards the bar at large and shrugs off his jacket, draping it over the slatted backrest to obscure the view. Large eyes flash to him, and she lets out a short huff of laughter.

"Hyuga-kun. I'm sure you already know my dignity's in tatters," she teases wryly. She makes no mention of the use of her given name though – he hopes it's due to an acceptance of his friendship at least, but something tells him she just doesn't care anymore.

"I don't know about that, Misato-san," he tries.

She studies him blankly before turning back to the bar with a brief, "Fuck off," tossed his way.

Usually he'd do as she asks – he always does as she asks – but she's crying and drunk and at least an hour's walk from home. She didn't want the kids to see, probably. The late trains aren't any place for a woman like Misato-san, especially drunk and vulnerable; she has a gun, but Makoto doubts she'd use it, hell, he doubt's she'd fight at all, the way she seems right now. It frightens him. His Madonna is strong and fierce, for all her faults, and seeing her with such a lack of care for herself makes his stomach churn.

His arms aren't strong like Kaji-san's. But right now they'll have to do.

"No, Misato-san," he states, and his voice is strong in the face of the tension in her shoulders. She turns her head slowly as he continues, "I'm not leaving you here, and you've had too many to take the late train alone. I won't make you go home, but you'll come with me to my place or a hotel, and you can sleep or talk or take a long bath. Whatever you like – dumb films, cards, whatever. But right now you're going to just let someone look after you. Alright?"

She looks at him like she's never met him before, just for a moment, and then she downs the remaining amber in front of her, uncaring. "Alright, Hyuga. Take me to yours – no sense wasting money on a hotel."

He takes her elbow carefully, helping her find her balance prior to reaching around her to retrieve his jacket. No tab – either she was being sensible or the bartender recognised the look of someone who'd drink the place dry given half a chance – so she leads him from the bar and into the slight, lukewarm drizzle. The walk is silent, only disturbed by the scuff of her boots at she stumbles a little and the rustle of his sleeve each time Makoto reaches up to slip off his glasses and rub the droplets from them into the side of his slacks. Another stumble and he wraps an arm around her, leaning her against his left side and praying with all he is that she can't feel his heart hammering away as they slowly head towards his flat.

ooo

**Makoto never** tells Aoba or Ibuki about that evening, or the night after it. He's not ashamed, oh no, because he did nothing to be ashamed of – he helped her to his flat, put on some jazz, brought her a small bottle of sake, and let her cry and drink on his sofa and into his shirt. He held her, petted her hair, and didn't tell her he loves her because that wasn't what she needed to hear, no matter how much he wanted to whisper it into her hair when she sobbed out his first name. Hours later she slept in his bed wearing an oversized old t-shirt he himself uses in lieu of proper pyjamas when he's left the laundry too long and the spare panties she keeps in her bag for when she has to work another crazily long shift at short notice, and whilst he refused her offer of the other half of the futon, he did bring out an old mattress and duvet, and held her hand across the small gap whilst she cried herself to sleep. When it reached morning, he held her hair back and retrieved glass after glass of water as she suffered for her overindulgence. He fetched her clean clothes as she showered, provided a light breakfast complete with painkillers and coffee just the way she likes it, and then accompanied her to the side street where she had abandoned her car in favour of alcohol the night before.

They arrived at work separately and neither mentioned anything, and that is how it will stay. Surveillance either doesn't know or respects them enough to keep quiet – Makoto returns the favour by discreetly buying those on duty (and in sight, at least) lunch, trusting that word of the gesture will get back to whoever has earned it. That night was private, more so than if he _had_ confessed and spent the night sweaty and pressed against her bare skin, and he'll take it to his grave. Without the judgements of his friends in the peanut gallery, if he has his way.

Nothing changes. It's almost to the point where Makoto wonders if she remembers anything of it at all. He brings her coffee every morning, buying her favourite when he can and making his best when he can't, and she thanks him with a smile. He presents his weekly offerings of cupcakes, makes small talk and then sneaks documents from under his colleagues' noses, and she continues to smile and thank him. She continues to risk herself and her reputation to not only keep them safe as her job demands but to save them from whatever it is that's hiding behind anomalous data and hidden reports, and she continues to disregard his obvious concern for her.

Every so often though, there's something. The odd candy she throws to him under the guise she bought too many for the kids and herself and knows he likes them; the lifts here and there she gives him because she knows he hates to drive in Tokyo-3 when he can avoid it. Her hand on the back of his chair as she gives her orders.

The way she leans in, lips brushing his ear, to apologise to him for the unfortunate way they may have to be blasted to hell and back.

ooo

**He's starting **to think that maybe, one day, when she's a little more over Kaji-san and when the people he cares about aren't constantly under threat, he might tell her. Perhaps he'll go to Aoba and Ibuki and tell them he's going to go for it, so for Chrissakes get the beers in because he'll need them one way or the other, and then he'll got to Akagi-sensei and beg her for her blessing or advice or, just, _something_. He might ask her out for drinks first and tell her as they walk away from the bar that he hopes she can see him as a _man_ rather than her colleague, or maybe he'll screw up every last ounce of courage and tell her he loves her at too loud a volume as his nerves take over.

His mind swims in these thoughts and hopes as he steps towards her with yet another one of his coffees, thirty-five hours into a shift that should really be shorter now that Tabris has been destroyed. She smiles and thanks him, same as always, and this is one of those bittersweet times when her fingers brush his, making them twitch with the urge to reach out and tangle their hands together – screw the coffee.

In less than a split-second the world is dark and his head, oh, _Jesus, Mary and Joseph_, his _head_, it _hurts_, _ithurtsithurtsithurts_, and where is everyone? He wants Aoba and Maya and Misato-san, _Misato-san_, is _she_ alright? What the fucking hell _hit_ them? If this is what dying beside her is like he dreads to think what it would have been if he'd taken a couple more minutes in the staff kitchen… Except he doesn't know that he _is_ dead, because why would his head be _screaming_ like this if he was dead?

He feels more than sees Shinji-kun in his head, and Asuka-chan, and, oh _Gods_, Misato-san. _Misato-san_. It doesn't matter, because he always knew she wasn't perfect, and he still loved her. Still _loves_ her. Can she see him? Can everyone see into _his_ head the way he sees into _theirs_ – Aoba's flings and dislike of people and childish dreams of someday writing a song he'll play to millions; Maya's inferiority complex and fear and sometimes fluffy, sometimes dark fantasies of Akagi-sensei; Akagi-sensei who _knew_ this was coming, God _fucking_ damn her, who had been helping plan this from the beginning, playing everyone and sleeping with the goddamn boss who didn't love her anyway, or her mother either, or even Shinji – _Christ_, that poor kid, to find out like _this_ – because he only wanted Yui, _Yui_ who was perfection and _Rei_ who could bring him to her. Rei who might be an Angel or might not and _oh sweet fucking Jesus Christ our Saviour_ he has to actually claw at his own mind to keep it together within the crushing pressure of Instrumentality.

He doesn't know _how_ he knows, but he knows when Misato's mind smashes into his and she sees _him_. Sees his _own_ character flaws – his inferiority complex and drinking habits and irritation with people even though he _tries_ to like them and trust them (and look where the fuck _that_ has got him); sees his otaku tendencies and joy at the idea of giant robots even after Eva, his _terror_ in almost every second of every day and his lack of experience as he turned those girlfriends away from his bed; how much he actually likes raspberries. And, oh heaven _help him_, she sees _herself_ as _he_ sees her, his _Madonna_, and sees what he's _done_ to thoughts of her and how _guilty_ he felt later. She sees what he wants, what he hopes for and what he _knows_ he can never have because life just doesn't like him, and she sees just how much of his being is devoted to her and trying to put that smile on her face, to earn her attention, to _stand a chance_. She sees his intentions, noble and less than such.

He doesn't know how he feels about it all, he's known on some level for what feels like years but never thought it was more than a… No, that's not right – _she_ doesn't know how _she_ feels about it all, about all of him, because _she_ never thought it was so very _much_.

Now that she does, she doesn't know what to think, needs time and space and maybe a dinner to talk things over, but she remembers that ni– _fuck it all_, now everyone knows about it and there's a distinct division of opinion between "honourable" and "pathetic" (Aoba's immediate gravitation towards the former is half-unexpected and means the world to him). Misato remembers though, all of it, and he can see her side of it through a haze of alcohol and grief, can see himself through her eyes, a little handsome haloed in mist and halogen light; can feel her gratitude and _care_ and determination to protect in return, but she's failed that and _no she fucking well hasn't_, she did everything possible, and he'll fucking _shoot_ any bastard that even dares _think_ otherwise.

She thinks well of him, _well of him_, even after every awful and dirty secret, and although it isn't any kind of guarantee aside from one small chance… One small chance that may not work out, that may come back to shoot him in the face, but, fuck, a _chance_. So rather than hoping they all die here, hoping the pain stops for good and that he'll never have to face anyone when this is over, he hopes Shinji makes the right choice. He hopes he gets the chance to see her start to decide and perhaps to talk it all through with her. He clings to his own mind with all that he is, regardless of how much knowledge he's missing out on or how open concentrating like this leaves him for everyone else to peruse. He hangs on and hopes they'll shrink back into their own heads and feel lonely again, waking up in their own weak bodies, because he wants his fucking chance. He wants to tell Misato that he loves her, all of her, even the parts he probably shouldn't because they aren't healthy or could hurt him. Because she's lovely even when she cries and drinks herself to sleep, she's clever and funny and reckless and oh-so _real_. He wants to explain himself in the wonderfully coherent way that this chaos won't allow.

He can feel it, Shinji's decision, as though it's his own. With their minds like this, perhaps it _is_ Makoto's – perhaps it's like a vote, with each of them adding their will until one side can finally push harder. So he throws everything he has behind it, Aoba and a slightly broken Maya right beside him, and he tries to force the feelings of acceptance and pride he has for all of them into the movement because he can feel theirs – it doesn't fill that supposed "emptiness," but it feels better than anything he's ever known, healing scars he never knew he had. He hopes they feel it.

He hopes _she_ feels it.

But when he's bought her dinner and they've had a couple of drinks, when they're stumbling along and she's leaning against his left side, it won't matter. He'll tell her properly, and pray she'll let him try his hand at keeping her.

ooo

ooo

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this - I hope you enjoyed it. If you have the time and/or inclination, a review would be greatly appreciated. No flames please, but constructive criticism is loved as much as praise.


End file.
